Educating by Story-Telling Showing the Value of Story-Telling as an Educational Tool for the Use of All Workers with Children

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Title: Educating by Story-Telling

Showing the Value of Story-Telling as an Educational Tool for the Use of All Workers with Children

Author: Katherine Dunlap Cather

Release Date: November 9, 2018 [eBook #58255]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDUCATING BY STORY-TELLING***

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[i]

Play School Series
Edited by Clark W. Hetherington

EDUCATING BY
STORY-TELLING

SHOWING THE
VALUE OF STORY-TELLING AS AN EDUCATIONAL
TOOL FOR THE USE OF ALL WORKERS
WITH CHILDREN

BY
Katherine Dunlap Cather

Author of “Boyhood Stories of Famous Men,”
“Pan and His Pipes and Other Stories,”
“The Singing Clock”

Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York
WORLD BOOK COMPANY
1918

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[iii]

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

This book has grown out of years of experiencewith children of all ages and all classes, and withparents, teachers, librarians, and Sunday School, socialcenter, and settlement workers. The material comprisingit was first used in something like its presentform in the University of California Summer Session,1914, and since then has been the basis of coursesgiven in that institution, as well as in private classesand lecture work. The author does not claim that itis the final word upon the subject of story-telling, orthat it will render obsolete any one of the several excellentworks already upon the market. But theresponse of children to the stories given and suggested,and the eagerness with which the principlesherein advocated have been received by parents andteachers, have convinced her that the book containscertain features that are unique and valuable to thoseengaged in directing child thought.

Other works have shown in a general way how vasta field is the realm of the narrator, but they have notworked out a detailed plan that the busy mother orteacher can follow in her effort to establish standards,to lead her small charges to an appreciation of thebeautiful in literature and art, and to endow themwith knowledge that shall result in creating a highercode of thought and action. No claim is made thatall the problems of the school and home are solvedin the ensuing pages, and the title, “Educating byStory-Telling,” makes no assumption that story-tellingcan accomplish everything. The author does[iv]assume, however, that when used with wisdom andskill, the story is a powerful tool in the hands of theeducator, and she attempts to indicate how, by thismeans, some portion of drudgery may be eliminatedfrom the schoolroom, and a more pleasurable elementbe put into it. She undertakes to demonstrate howit is possible to intensify the child’s interest in mostof the subjects composing the curriculum, not byadvancing an untried theory, but by traveling along apath that has been found to be a certain road to attainment,not only for the gifted creative teacher, but forthe average ordinary one who is often baffled by thebigness of the problem she has to solve.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission touse copyrighted material as follows: to the Whitaker,Ray, Wiggin Company for the story entitled “TheSearch for the Seven Cities” (page 149); to Dr. DavidStarr Jordan and A. C. McClurg & Co. for “The Storyof a Salmon” (page 255) and “The Story of a Stone”(page 331); to the David C. Cook Company for “ThePigeons of Venice” (page 263), “The Duty ThatWasn’t Paid” (page 278), “Wilhelmina’s WoodenShoes” (page 283), “The Luck Boy of Toy Valley”(page 302), and “The Pet Raven” (page 317); and toHenry Holt & Co. for “The Emperor’s Vision”(page 306).

Katherine Dunlap Cather

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CONTENTS